Rumour: dual-GPU AMD Radeon R9 290X2?

The Chinese department of VR-Zone claims that AMD is currently developing a new dual-GPU graphics card. This unconfirmed card has been dubbed 'Radeon R9 290X2', mostly because its expected to be based on two Hawaii XT chips, featured on the Radeon R9 290X.

The two-headed GPU is claimed to be in the design phase, which undoubtedly brings quite some challenges with regard to power consumption and heat dissipation. This likely means the card isn't to be expected shortly. VR-Zone states that the codename for the new creation is 'Vesuvius', which seems plausible since AMD used the 'Volcanic Islands' codename for its recent R200-series of GPUs.

In terms of specifications, no real details are available. The best case scenario would be a combination of two full-fledged Hawaii XT chips, resulting in a double Radeon R9 290X. This would mean a total of 5632 stream processors, 352 TMUs and 128 ROPs. In theory, the amount of GDDR5 memory would also double to 8 GB. We'll have to wait for the card to make its official debut to check the validity of these rumours.

AMD's most recent dual-GPU card, the Radeon HD 7990, gives an idea of what the 'Vesuvius' could look like